Sunday, 24 July 2011

Reconciled to God!

Today I had 3 meetings. The first 2 were in Remedios T. Romualdez (conveniently referred to as RTR). The first church service was at a Four Square church where the youth seminar was held yesterday. I spoke on sonship and the difference between identity in Christ and intimacy with God from the parable of the prodigal son. It was a wonderful meeting and when I invited those who had never made a decision to follow Christ and become sons of God, over 15 people gave their lives to the Lord. Hallelujah! I am amazed at the response we are getting in our meetings!

After a delicious lunch we made our way to New Life in Christ church nearby. When we arrived I found a group awaiting our arrival of people aged between 1 month and 60 years old! The majority of the church were the youth pastor's youth group and other youngsters from other churches. Using a mobile phone I explained the Gospel and how we need Jesus to be connected to the life, the power and the love of the Father. We had a tremendous amount of fun and after the message almost everyone gave their life to Jesus! I then invited people to be prayed for to be healed and 4 or 5 people came for prayer and subsequently testified to experiencing the power of God! Glory to God!

After a couple mangos and a lovely time with the people and especially with the youth pastor Dennis who is a real character, we made our way back to Butuan where I was to lead a kids' meeting at the Free Methodist church. We waited a while for transport and eventually got on a rather crowded bus that was overflowing with adults, kids and a chicken! After 15 minutes travel, I suddenly heard a loud bang and the sound of air escaping as one of the tyres had burst. We immediately stopped and I praise God that nothing serious happened. Berwyn and I got off the bus as the rest waited for the bus driver to change the tyre. We then caught another bus and finally got to the church 20 minutes late.

I quickly entered the hall and found a group of about 100 kids worshipping God. Again, I spoke to them about how we need to be connected to Jesus in order to be connected to the Father's life, power and love. We had a lot of fun and they particularly enjoyed my action game I did with them inbetween some profound truth! Half way through the message, we had a power cut and I had to do the remainder of the meeting in the dark with the help of a few emergency lights! By now it seemed to me that the enemy was really trying hard to stop God's work. The darkness, however, didn't and couldn't stop us! I then invited anyone who wanted to decide to follow Jesus to pray with us and to my astonishment over two thirds of the chidren raised their hand to follow Jesus. I then invited those who had surrendered their lives to the Lord to come forward for prayer to be filled with the presence, the power and the love of God. The children all made their way to the front in he dark and one by one we prayed for each one of these precious souls. It was the most amazing atmosphere and the presence of God was wonderful. I was later told by the youth leader, Julius, that they do not usually get a response from the kids like we witnessed today. I praise God for His awesome work in rescuing these kids from the kingdom of darkness and placing them in the kingdom of the Son he loves! Hallelujah!

After the meeting I was shattered but we still went out for grilled chicken with a small group as it was pastor Julius' birthday today! At the restaurant I went to the men's loo and managed to lock myself in, unable to get out again as the door handle inside was broken! All I could do was bang on the door and wait until someone eventually rescued me. Praise God!

Tomorrow should be a day of rest but you never know what "suddenlies" the Holy Spirit has planned! It's been an incredible day. Many lives have been saved and healed. I am simply in awe of what God is doing here. His Kingdom is here and I just sense His passion for His creation and His longing for all to be reconciled to His presence, power and love.

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the message of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting man's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." 2 Cor. 5:18-20